This is a two part lesson for high school chemistry students. In part 1, the lab is designed to introduce students to the applications of forcing a chemical reaction using an electrical current. Students will discover how a flow of electrons allows cations in solution to revert to a solid state while plating an object. Students will become familiar with the process which allows the ions of the plating solution to be replenished, and how this results in a loss of mass for the solid metal electrode.  In part 2,the lab is designed to help students understand how nanowires can be created using a simple set up, and how this compares to the fabrication of nanowires in industry.  There is also an emphasis in the questions on having students think about how a procedure could be modified to obtain different results.

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Lesson developed by RETs and staff at Pennsylvania State Univerity NNIN site: Stephen Stillanous, Paul Longwell, Chantelle (RETs), Zulekia Torres, Ronald Redwing, and Mary Shoemaker (staff)

NNCI Nano

NNIN RET program at Pennsylvania State University NSF EEC 0601939 and NNIN NSF ECCS 0335765

Researchers should cite this work as follows:

• Stephen Stillanous, Paul Longwell, Zulekia Torres, Ronald Redwing, Mary Shoemaker, NNCI Nano (2020), "Electrodeposition and Synthesis of Nickel Nanowires," https://nanohub.org/resources/31950.

  BibTex | EndNote

1. chemistry
2. electrochemistry
3. electrodeposition
4. electroplating
5. fabrication
6. high school
7. K-12
8. nanowires
9. NNCI Educational Materials
10. synthesis